“Is that why they’re giving you a week off, because of the new job?”
“I deserve a week off, don’t you think?”
“Don’t avoid me. Please don’t do that. Something big is about to happen. I’m not blind. I’ve been to the docks. They’re full of destroyers and cruisers and LST’s. And the town is filling up with soldiers, soldiers that have never been in this town before. And the Port Authority at Trincomalee has been placed out of bounds to all civilians. It’s in the very air, Con.”
“I suppose,” he said. “Yes, there’s a show coming up. A big one.”
“And you’re in it, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“This Colonel Piccalo you work for, he’s got it all figured out. Like you’re cattle, fattening you up for the kill. He always makes sure of that,” she said. “But I’ll wager he’s not going along.”
“I wish I could tell you about him.” He took her hand. “I wish I could,” he smiled. Then he was silent for a moment. “I love you, Carla.”
“I love you,” she said.
“You’ll marry me then?”
“You know I will.”
“And we’ll forget the war for a week. Not even mention it.”
“Not even mention it,” she smiled.
They went up to Kandy the next day to sign the papers for their marriage on the fifteenth. It took two and a half days to battle through the red tape and sign the many forms, then they returned to the cottage. Nautaung came to dinner twice. Then two days before Con’s leave was up while they were on the beach in the afternoon they saw the smoke streamers of a great fleet of ships as they headed out to sea. At sunset they sat on the porch steps having a drink. She was dressed in beach slacks and a sweat shirt and the early evening wind from the sea was pleasantly cool. He had just told her again how amazingly American she looked when the houseboy came out and said he was wanted on the phone.
He came back out fifteen minutes later. “I have to go,” he said.
Then she noticed he had gotten fully dressed; clean khakis, para-boots, carrying his bush hat in his right hand. “Now?” she said incredulously. “Tonight?”
He set the hat on the steps. He reached down with both hands, took hers, and pulled her up to him. “That was Mark. Something came up. I have to hurry.”
“But you’ve two days left,” she said. “Don’t go, Con. You don’t have to. Please, just this once. For me. Just this once change your mind.”
He looked down. He saw her bare feet half-buried in the sand near the bottom step. “I’m sorry, Carla. I have to go,” he said with a troubled expression.
There was a momentary silence.
“You’ll have dinner first?”
“I can’t.”
“You’ll have to pack. I’ll help you pack.”
“I don’t have the time.”
The departing sun all gold and red reflected on her golden hair and slightly bewildered beautiful child’s face: “When I see you like you are now I know the world is beautiful,” he said. “And that there are beautiful things in store for it.”
“Oh, Con, please don’t.…”
And then he kissed her and she felt it fully, completely; all the great tenderness of him, the longingness of him for her. He stepped back.
“Stay there,” he said. “Like that. With the sun on you the way it is. I love you.”
“Good-bye, Con.”
He picked up the hat and put it on. “Good-bye. But only for a while.”
Then he turned and without looking back went lightly up the porch steps and through the cottage. The front door slammed. She listened and finally heard the engine of the limousine turn over, the scraping of the gravel as the big black sedan tore out the drive.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Con made it to the headquarters in fifteen minutes. Mark was waiting in the maproom with Gus.
“You called it,” Gus said to Con when he came in.
“The Japs are evacuating Rangoon,” Mark said. “Agent Estelle radioed an hour ago.”
“But the invasion force just put to sea today,” Con said.
“I know,” Gus said. “I just talked to Allied Headquarters. It’s impossible for them to move up their rendezvous. Plan A is still in effect. They’re landing three days from now as scheduled. We have to get in there now.”
“Are you sure they’re evacuating?” Con said.
“Two other groups have confirmed Estelle,” Gus said. “They knew our plan exactly.”
Nautaung came in. “Hello, Dua,” he said to Con. He handed Mark a report.
“Japanese evacuating Minden airfield,” Mark read it aloud.
“We’ll fly in then,” Con said. “Tomorrow morning.”
“The field is believed to be mined,” Nautaung said.
“We can land in between the runways,” Mark said. “How about it, Gus?”
“We have to try,” Gus said. “If someone doesn’t establish martial law there’ll be nothing left by the time the troops arrive.”
“And the POW’s Mister Piccolo,” Nautaung said. “Will not the collaborators attempt their liquidation?”
“I’ll get the Kachins out, Nautaung,” Con said. “You’d better wire Colonel Pearson at Ramree. His group is in charge of liberating the Americans.”
“I have,” Gus said. “And the SEAC group in charge of English prisoners and civilians.”
“I’ll go alert the base that we’re putting the flight plan in effect,” Mark said. “What about oh-three hundred hours for a departure?”
“Fine by me,” Con said. “That will get us in before noon. We can try with one plane. If it doesn’t go up we’ll follow in. We need air support, Gus.” Gus nodded. “If it does go up we can land at Insein and walk the twenty miles in. I built a strip outside of Insein about a month ago,” Con said explaining to Gus, “to bring out recruits.”
Mark left.
“Con, you’ve got to get your men into the financial institutions,” Gus said. “We’ve got to protect every shilling if Burma’s to have any economy at all.”
“You mean so the pound sterling isn’t devaluated, don’t you, Gus?” Con said. “When the prisoners are free we’ll take care of the banks. Let’s go, Nautaung.”
Con and the old man walked down to Con’s office. On the way they stopped by the radio room to inform the head message clerk of their whereabouts. Nautaung rang for some tea and Con opened his locker and began to lay his equipment on a brown leather club chair. First his pack, then his cartridge belt with two canteens and the .38 he had carried in the Hills. Then he picked up a Thompson gun in one hand, a carbine in the other. He studied them for a moment, returned the Thompson gun to his locker. Finally he reached up on the top shelf and pulled down his old battered army-green canvas mapcase. He ran his hand over it affectionately, then laid it on the edge of his massive, highly polished Burmese teak desk.
Nautaung smiled. “That piece of equipment, it is ready for retirement, Dua. With pension.”
“That’s my first issue mapcase, Nautaung. My first issue belt, too. I got them when I came out of officer’s school,” Con said. He reached into the locker and took out a bandoleer, removed a clip, inserted it, worked the action quickly inserting the bullet to the chamber, and set the safety.
“When I was a little boy I was afraid of guns,” he said running his hand over the stock. “And once coming home from a ball game with my father we saw an accident. I was eight then. I was so upset I couldn’t eat my dinner. I’ll never forget it. We had cherries for dessert and I had a boy’s passion for cherries. It was hard for me to believe that I could ever have refused cherries. I must have been very sensitive then.” He set the carbine down and walked around back of his desk and sat in the cushioned, carved teak swivel chair.
“I learned to shoot in Rangoon. My uncle taught me. Now I go back after all these years. You should have known my uncle, Nautaung. It’s funny going back this way.”
“You never go back to anywhere the w
ay you think you will go back.”
“No,” Con said. “You never do.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Chesterfields. He took one and threw the pack to Nautaung.
The old man smiled. He was sitting deep in the other leather chair one leg propped over the arm. For a second he studied the cigarette rolling it between his fingers then tapped the tobacco tight on his ancient wrist. He lit up.
“I loved cherries the way you love Chesterfields,” Con said. “Man is funny. He makes Chesterfields for your pleasure. War to take away your pleasure. Whatever he makes he makes better. For greater pleasure or greater war.”
“Yes, Dua,” Nautaung said in Kachin. “And some day out of the habit of making things better he will make himself so.”
“I believe that,” Con said answering in Kachin. “I no longer question that life is good. If in all this killing, this bloodshed, this greed there is good then there can be no doubt … what a fool I knew myself to be when looking through the wallet of the first Japanese I killed. To find a picture of his family. The words of love inscribed on the back of the picture. I had never considered that. That as humans we are one. As in knowing you and the people I found out that there is more than race. And the false pride of race. As Danny was more of this world than England yet England was the better because of him. The world too. I’ve been very lucky.”
“It is simply the lesson of your Christ, Dua,” Nautaung said in Kachin. “Truly you did not have to come here to know this. Though in coming you have brought us things we needed. In our trust of you the people will no longer hide in the Hills. Now they will spread their good ways as you directed. It has been a good marriage. We have made a good birth. Now we must raise our offspring. That will take much patience and much work.”
“Yes, there is much to be done. Important work. Much more important than this work. I’m just finding that out.”
The phone rang. Con answered. While he spoke the striker delivered the tea. Con hung up and reached in the drawer and pulled out a bottle of Dewar’s and two glasses. “I’ll leave you the tea. Let’s have a drink. Mark’s coming around in a few minutes. We’re going to the airport and check the loading.”
“How well do you know the city?” Nautaung asked.
“Not too well. The main market place and the docks and the far suburb near Lake Victoria. Nothing of the area from which we will probably make our approach. Though I know about where the main stockade is.”
“I should be on this mission. I know the area well.”
Con smiled. “You have your job. You get me the reports as fast as you can after my radio is set-up. We have many men who know the city well. And if you have time, call Carla. She’s in a mood of a sort.”
“I will call. I am very proud that I stand at your wedding.”
“We are proud, Nautaung. I forgot to tell you we’re going to the Hills when this is over,” he said not realizing he was still speaking in Kachin.
Nautaung smiled. “It is time we return.”
Con got up and slipped on his pack and belt, slung his carbine, put on the bush hat. Silently he handed Nautaung his drink. They raised their glasses and drank. Outside the car horn blared twice.
“I’ll call for you as soon as the town is secure.”
“Yes, Dua,” Nautaung said his wise ancient eyes leveled at Con. Slowly, deliberately the old man came to attention. He saluted holding the salute rigidly, waiting.
Finally Con returned the salute. They smiled a silent, knowing smile. Con turned and left.
And from the window Nautaung watched as the car pulled out the driveway and disappeared into the night.
By 0300 hours eight more agent groups had confirmed the evacuation. Mark called Nautaung on the phone and told him to radio the underground resistance forces to assemble at Minden airfield. Then Mark and Con each in one DC-3 loaded with specially trained police, interpreters, demolition experts, and specially trained resistance leaders took off, two more DC-3s of their unit following in a half hour. They had six Spitfires flying wing in support of the first group, six in support of the second.
It was 1100 hours of a clear, tropical day as they approached the city. Con, standing behind the pilots, pointed out the golden dome of the Schwe Dagon pagoda as it glistened peacefully in the morning sunlight. Then the co-pilot pointed and in the south-east suburbs they saw puffs of smoke rising from the streets and houses and knew that already there was rioting or fighting of some scale in progress.
The planes dipped changing course slightly to the northwest flying high as the fighters swept in low. As they approached the field they saw that there were six DC-3s parked at one end, and one taking off. They got on the radio and found that Pearson’s unit from Ramree had the same idea and had landed earlier.
They landed at once and Mark and Con assembled their units in an abandoned anti-aircraft emplacement. In the distance there was firing and an occasional explosion and much activity around the field with the intelligence groups trying to locate the leaders of the resistance forces, and the civilian curiosity seekers, and agents arresting agents, and soldiers arresting soldiers, everyone wary of the other’s status.
Con ordered his resistance leaders to make one circle of the field, make what contacts they could, then return at once. Mark ordered the others to sit down and rest until the two other planes arrived, then joined Con.
“It’s going to be a bloody circus,” Mark said. “Nobody knows who the hell anybody is.”
“We’ll get out of here as soon as the other planes land,” Con said leaning on the edge of the chest high emplacement, calmly smoking, watching the activity of the field. “Hey, Mark there goes one of my boys from the Hills. Goodwin.… Goodie, come over here,” Con hollered.
The G.I. passing not ten feet away turned and his mouth drooped half-open with surprise. “Jesus Christ … Con,” Goodwin said. He came over and jumped down into the emplacement. He was very tall, very young, Mark saw, almost tow-headed.
“What a fucking mess,” Goodwin was saying. “We got every asshole non-combatant American they had left in Washington here. I don’t know where the hell Pearson got em.”
“Where’s Ray?”
“At sea with the Fleet. Advising the General Staff.”
Con introduced him to Mark.
“We had six killed already,” Goodwin said a little breathlessly. “And their own goddamn fault.”
“Booby-trap?” Mark asked.
“Two that way,” Goodwin said. “Four of our officers grabbed a truck and started blithely up the road. They hit a mine.”
“Who’s in charge?” Con asked.
“You don’t know him. Commander Langly.”
“Commander?” Con questioned.
“Sure. We got four naval officers with us.”
Con looked at Mark and they began to laugh.
“It’s no fucking joke,” Goodwin said. “I tell you it ain’t no fucking joke. At least we knew what we were doing in the Hills. Nobody knows nothing around here. Where’s Ringa and Niven? the rest? they here?”
“Still at Sinlum.”
“I gotta go,” Goodwin said. “You haven’t got a drink have you? They confiscated mine on the plane.”
Con took off one of his canteens. “Keep it.”
“Scotch?”
“Dewar’s.”
He took a big swig and offered Con a drink. He took one. Then Mark drank. Goodwin fastened the canteen to his belt. “Thanks, men,” he said and hopped out of the emplacement and took off at a half run.
“Here come our other planes,” Mark said.
One hour later Con and Mark had checked each of the groups as to their mission and dispatched them with specific instructions to stay off the main roads, to stay out of contact with any civilians including monks unless in the line of duty, and not to enter any house or building unless it was essential to the completion of their mission. Then Con and Mark and four Burmese Riflemen and their radio unit of four men started for the main Japa
nese stockade.
Leaving the airfield they went cross-country. As they cut across the fields they saw that there was considerable traffic on the roads; evacuees fearing allied reprisals or bombardment carrying their valued possessions on their backs, in carts, or piled high on small two wheeled wagons pulled by domesticated water buffalo, their families strung out behind them. There were yellow robed monks with shaven heads on the road and twice they had seen cars. Con set a very fast pace for over two miles and soon they were in the sparsely populated suburbs, then they entered into densely populated residential areas staying to the side streets. The deeper they penetrated the less traffic they saw.
Mark kept waiting for Con to halt their small unit and set-up the radio to receive by relay the one o’clock message from Nautaung at Colombo. Finally Mark advised Con that it was already fifteen minutes past receiving time.
They halted and set-up the radio in an abandoned street bazaar in the center of a housing district. It was mid-day tropical hot as the generators began to whrrr and the shaded stalls of the abandoned bazaar gave little relief. There was no one on the streets, but much curiosity from behind windows, and no firing in the area. To the south was periodic rifle fire, and to the far south a siren wailed, and fighters circled protectively over the city.
Con sat alone at the far end of the white tin-roofed radio shelter which was in the second row of stalls and had once been, they saw from the signs, the tobacco stall. He had looked for familiar landmarks but saw none and knew that he had never been in this section of town. He was resting up against a pillar smoking, waiting. When after fifteen minutes Mark hadn’t made radio contact he came over and told Con.
“It’s bound to be like this for a few days. Nobody will get on the air at the right time,” Con said. “We’ll make contact eventually.”
“I guess you’re right. We had this trouble the first Wingate show,” Mark said. “But I don’t like it, Con. It’s too bloody quiet in this neighborhood.”
The bazaar was at the corner of an intersection of two streets with two and three story apartments on the other three corners.
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